Most artists fall into one of two categories, either fine vocalists or great musicians, but Nina is a rarity. She shows both talents with equal brilliance. Her keyboard ability, for example, displays a rare extent of musical breadth, ranging from the studied discipline of concert pianist to the improvisational and imaginative scope of a jazz musician.
The circumstances under which Nina emerged as a pianist-singer are perhaps as amazing as the dual achievement itself. Her career as a pianist began at the age of four when she simply stepped up to the piano and started playing by ear! Soon afterward, she was taking classical piano lessons, and she continued on to advance study, later eventuating at the Juillard School of Music in New York.
Nina’s debut as a vocalist happened by accident, through a mix-up in booking arrangements. She was hired at an Atlantic City night club in the summer of 1954 supposedly to play piano, but on her first night she was told that the job required singing too. Desperate enough for the money, she made a stab at doing some songs even though she had never sung in her entire life! The audience reaction turned out to be so enthusiastic that she was encouraged to pursue a second facet of her talent.
Born Eunice Waymon on February 21, 1935 in the obscure North Carolina town of Tryon. Nina was the sixth of eight children. Her father was a handyman, and her mother worked as a housekeeper during the day, and, at night, wore the robes of an ordained Methodist minister.
Her early life was one of constant hardship, and Nina struggled to secure her academic and musical education, but now she is enjoying the results of her hard work personally as well as professionally.
Nina lives in a large three-story, nine-room house in Mr. Vernon, NY with her husband, Andy Stroud, and their daughter Lisa Celeste who came along September 12, 1962. Married to Nina in December of 1961 after a whirlwind courtship, Mr. Stroud was then a Detective Sergeant on the New Your City police force.
After their marriage, Andy resigned to take over as Nina’s personal manager although at the time he was just set for a promotion to Lieutenant.
Among Nina’s favorite hobbies is a passion for interior decorating, and the product of her textbook learning plus her own imaginative hand is evident in the Stroud home. She also manages to find time for swimming, scuba diving, bicycling, reading and studying interpretive dancing.
Nina’s enormous capacity and need for expression have found a rewarding outlet in her role as a mother. She has already made plans to take little Lisa with her on all out-of-town engagements. The idea of being separated from her daughter for a career, or for anything, never did set well with Nina.
Lisa seems to be a chip off the old block as far as music is concerned. She was banging on the piano at eight months of age and now, at two, shows a remarkable sense of harmonics and timing for a child her age. Nina is impressed with so early an indication of musical talent and wouldn’t be surprised if someday her on-stage appearances were billed as a duo instead of a single.
It was in 1959 that Nina skyrocketed to disc fame with her big hit recording of I Loves You Porgy. And it was the same year that Nina added song-writing to her career as a pianist and singer. During her first recording session, two scheduled songs were suddenly scrapped and to fill the need Nina wrote to more right on the spot. Since then, she was written and recorded many more of her own songs.
Now that Nina is an established songwriter herself, she has become an ardent fan of amiable and fabulously successful Benny Benjamin whose catalogue of hits could fill a small encyclopedia. To mention only a few: Wheel of Fortune, Rumors Are Flying, I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire Till Then, You’re All I Want For Christmas and Cross Over The Bridge. A Benjamin tune is invariably included in a Nina Simone album, and Nina recorded six of his songs in her Broadway-Blues-Ballads LP.
No Nina Simone performance is quite the same as any one preceding it. Her depth of expression and her seemingly unlimited resources for interpretation give each performance an added air of originality and refreshment. When Nina dons the familiar bandanna and apron-fronted gown for Pirate Jenny, her audiences are suddenly aware of the real meaning and significance behind these fearful lyrics from The Threepenny Opera.
Nina’s concert reviews are filled with rave notices which in turn are filled with the most extreme adjectives acclaiming her technical skill and superb showmanship. Music experts and average laymen alike all agree that she has so much talent…and with so much talent to spare.